The Brewery Tap Cliff Road, Cliff Quay, Ipswich, Suffolk IP3 0AT

 

The Brewery Tap is what I would call a proper gastro pub.  Interesting food is served and some of the dishes may sound a bit ponsy to some but the flavours work well together.  The portions are very generous and generally speaking the quality is quite high though I was told that the roast dinner was not up to previous standards when I ate there with 2 friends yesterday.

 

 

Yesterday I started off with Devilled Chicken Hearts which came in quite a garlicy sauce with a few onions.  I would have liked a touch more spice with this but it was a thick warming sauce and the portion was generous.  They were served on toast using good quality home made bread.  I also got to try smoked prawns that a friend had and these were gorgeous with a deep smoky taste which suggested proper smoking rather than just liberal use of liquid smoke.

 

For mains, 2 of us opted for smoked chicken and one of us chose belly pork.  The chickens are locally reared using free range rather than battery farming.  You can tell the difference when animals are bread naturally rather than being closed in and fed chemicals to make them artificially fat.  They have more taste and a firmer texture.  This was clearly good quality chicken with decent texture.  The roast potatoes were slightly disappointing.  They were crispy but soggy rather than fluffy in the middle.  I also found there was a lack of gravy.  The roast on its own cost £11 and at this price I would expect the gravy to come out in a boat allowing me to choose how much gravy I wanted.  In fact gravy was hardly in evidence at all.  The vegetables were peas, squash and well something    rather over cooked and indeterminate.  The stuffing was I think, home made sage and onion.  It was perfectly pleasant though something a little more exotic might have been in order at the price.  I can’t complain about the size of the portion.  It was really quite hearty!

 

One of my friends had belly pork.  I tried this and it was beautifully tender with plenty of good crackling. He says the mash was also really buttery and excellent.

 

Only one of us had enough space left for dessert and to my shame it wasn’t me!  Still I tried some of the baileys cheesecake and it was beautifully rich and overindulgent.

 

I had 3 pints of Blond Mermaid  ale brewed on the premises.  This was a pleasant fairly well hopped beer with fruity flavours mixed in.  surprisingly easy drinking for its 5.2 percent alcohol content.  The other ales brewed here are very much worth drinking though some may find them a little sweet.

 

The food and ale served in this pub are excellent.  This is a pub worth travelling to.  I will give the roast a low mark because while it was plentiful I did not think it was quite worth £11.   I did not quite think due care had been taken with it though I am told some staff were away on holiday.  Given the quality of the rest of the food I sampled I would give the benefit of the doubt and go back again (and again and again if I lived in Ipswich)!

 

This being said I could only give the roast itself 6.5 out of 10.  Great quality roast chicken.  Not enough gravy and not enough variety of vegetables.  Roasties were soggy in the middle not fluffy enough!

 

I would give the Devilled Chicken heart 8 out of 10 however.  I would have liked a little more kick in the source but well done to the chef for running with a dish that many would run a mile from before even trying it!

 

More info about the  Brewery Tap along with sample beer and food menus and an events list can be found by visiting

http://thebrewerytap.org/  

 

 

The Park Hotel, 114 Exeter Road, Exmouth, Devon EX8 1QH

I visited this pub 2 weeks ago on a Sunday for a roast dinner.  The pub menu is replaced by a roast dinner menu on Sundays.  I opted for pork.  Beef and Chicken were the other choices on this particular Sunday.

 

A soup is included with the meal which costs £7 in total.  The Mushroom soup was tasty but a little watery.  The pork was perhaps a little thin but there was plenty of it.  There was also a decent amount of crackling.  The potatoes were quite crispy and fluffy in the middle.  They were well above average for a pub.  The roast was served with peas, carrots,  parsnip and swede mash and cabbage.

 

This was a well rounded roast at a good price.  The meat was rather thin and perhaps a little dry.  The vegetables were not overcooked but they were a little plane.  This was a simple but well cooked roast.  I like something a little more imaginative  myself but at the price it’s hard to grumble.  If you like your roasts traditional and quite simple then this could be the roast dinner for you.  I would certainly go to the park hotel for dinner again though I wouldn’t make a special journey to Exmouth for it.

 

I would give it 7 out of 10 because the quality was generally quite high and it was great value for money.  Thicker meat and a little imagination would have really increased the mark here as the roast potatoes were a highlight and roast potatoes are often the most disappointing part of a Sunday roast.